Man. You know you're a geek when reformatting your hard drive is, like, a fun way to spend a weekend. After four hours of sleep, I practically backflipped out of bed with delight, ready for the final round of backups.

A bit of fun reading found on Metafilter this morning: Miracles of the Next 50 Years, as published in Popular Mechanics back in 1950. The wonders of our present future are all described through the lives of a fictional family of white people. Checkit:

Some of the food that Jane Dobson buys is what we miscall "synthetic." In the middle of the 20th century statisticians were predicting that the world would starve to death because the population was increasing more rapidly than the food supply. By 2000, a vast amount of research has be conducted to exploit principles that were embryonic in the first quarter of the 20th century. Thus sawdust and wood pulp are converted into sugary foods. Discarded paper table "linen" and rayon underwear are bought by chemical factories to be converted into candy.

As citizens of earth, let's all band together to ensure that these dreams become reality before yet another 50 years slip away from us. Jesus. If science ever figures out a way to recycle clothing into candy, I'll eat my hat.

it's raining now, as it has been for more than twelve hours. lush and green, wet and gray. last night i slept for twelve hours. i should probably eat something, as my ten a.m. breakfast with matt has been, as they say, digested. I eat a lot of baked beans, for some reason. my friend nikki says she strongly associates me with baked beans. i find that disheartening, for some reason. i'd probably feel better if i had some baked beans to munch on.

andrew came to visit for five days, and alison came to work and play for two weeks, and virgil got married. there were meals cooked, long days toiling under a hot sun, meeting up with multiple circles of friends at the tortoise show. four birthday gifts, casually spaced. my hair is blond now.

i missed pobably the most important thing to ever happen within the world of weblogs, but it's okay. i'm busy, and comfortable unplugged, and life before the internet seems familliar - laughing face to face with friends, a little croquet on the grass, sleep and beverages. climbing a playground with rabi. a warm weekend in a new hampshire cabin, drinking and grilling. but i miss everyone scattered across earth i haven't had time to read during the past month. clickety-click. vroom vroom.

the day after she left was one of the most difficult sunny days i've ever walked.

Last month, Aimee Wilkens layed down a double issue of F/2, her always beautifully designed photo netmag. Included in the May/June issue focusing on places are eight photos I've taken of my car, all around the country. Several of these have already appeared in sixfoot6.com, somewhere. Since the images are not labelled within F/2, here's some quick captions:

Next time you're in Okie country, be sure to stop by and visit me in person at the travel center and lemme know what you think of the photos. I'm located just down the street from Ms. Shortstop, Inc., now owned by dear Ms. Martha Sickles. You'd think with my sweet travel center job, I wouldn't have to lug a 4500 pound car around, but nego.

South Station, Sunday, 6:30, the bus is late, the iced coffee is too small, and i could swear my pace is quickening.

Urbane concrete interiors, air whipping around the edges of six-sided, six-wheeled transport boxes. Buildings driving on blacktop. There's very little other than joe-tinged air moving through this plastic straw.

These days, dear diary, are silly, endearing, and hard to predict. Something like a fractalled Fraggle.

I'm taking the bus because I missed the train. I missed the train because I stayed seated at the South Station subway stop. My statis-seated status, passenger pastoral, was caused by the new Mogwaialbum.

I was all lost in thought y music pouring through my slick new headphones. Didn't see the doors open or close. I hopped off at Broadway, the CD skipped and my neck was bleeding, I had to pull a paper towel from a trash can to apply pressure, and I kept looking at my watch and fidget-stepping in frustration, no subway in sight, the benched woman with the bicycle looking toward me, uncomfortable. My bleeding slowed down. The T came, I boarded, it sped up, it slowed down, and after I bounded up escalators and sprinted between slowpokes I discovered I'd missed the train by two minutes. The evening sun lit up parallel empty platforms, aluminum structures, my $5 green shirt.

It felt like the bleeding melancholic inevitablility in the music had dictated that I should would miss the train. Soundtrack guiding plot. Sad, suggested events.

I sometimes cry in moments of innocent and insignificant loss, a child's balloon bursting on a hot car. Joyful tears come at points of simple selflessness, an unexpected gift of milk and cookies, Benicio Del Toro in the final moment of Traffic.

The bus climbs onto 93 South, and through the tinted window I see Big Dig construction, but no backup.

Happy Birthday, love, thought I at the stroke of midnight, when (after dinner and drinks and laughter and chit-chat) my friend Virgil's Saturday-night bachelor party culminated in the arrival of two strippers and a large man named Jimmi. The mustached Jimmi told us the rules. The girls entered the bathroom to change, then walked in wearing very little, and that little was soon gone. What followed, on their part, was a series of gyrating movements and a lot of peculiar configurations. What followed, on their parts, was a series of dollar bills and a lot of rubby-rubby. What followed, on my part, was an unexpected combination of boredom, intrigue and sadness. After three peices of pizza, two pint glasses of water and one long night, I curled up on the carpet in the front room. Dinner was nice.

bernoulli's principle: as the velocity of a fluid increases, the pressure exerted by that fluid decreases. there must be an equation, but equations haven't interested me much during the last few years. moving air exerts less sideward pressure. a moving air mass pulls. this is the science of flight, of ping-pong balls stuck in funnels, hurricanes bursting windows, sailing, eddies, al roker. it helps me understand how frisbees stay afloat on a sunday afternoon in downtown plymouth. how cigarette smoke gets sucked out of a car window when we're driving through the state forest.

i've been thinking that it's much the same for people and our activities, actions, hobbies, recreations and routines: as the velocity of an activity increases, the pressure exerted by that activity decreases. productivity breeds productivity, yes, and through practice the demanding routines become easier. Moving activities supplant others, pulling at surrounding blocks of time. what follows is the ebb of scheduling and the flow of personality.

there is inertia to all of this, laws of specific relativity. sometimes when i'm busiest, i don't feel like i'm moving. long hours working on the golf course in the 90 degree sun, driving a cart, listening to sound, watering grass and hydrating coworkers. nights getting busy relaxing and being social. weekends visiting friends in boston. a little coffee and a little croquet. playing with matt and a giant styrofoam glider. a good night's sleep. we can all stand to get a bit pastoral now and again. the velocity of springtime has pulled me from the screen, and just

At night, I hear frogs. These days, the cranberry bogs and wetlands behind my house resonate with a pulsing, muted-but-multilayered chirping. We've always call them "peepers". It's similar to the sound of cricket legs-a-rubbing, but less distinct, produced by air sqeeezed through amphibious mouth-membrane. Frogs are small and sit in the mud. Sometimes, frogs site on rocks. When I fall asleep with my window open, it's hard to identify the sound's source. Zero-point audio.

In the afternoon, the peepers' singing intermingles with the voices of robins and insects. When you walk close to the edge of a cranberry bog, the nearby frogs quiet down in response to vibration, waiting for you to pass. As night wears on, the continuous chorus breaks apart into individual voices, sometimes waning to a mere five or seven voices.

This sound is a familiar and comforting part of living in the home where I've always lived. Rain today, sun tomorrow, grass greening. I'm a sucker for sense-of-spring, that feeling of the season-cycle building up to something.

i know, rationally that productivity breeds productivity. once i get myself to start doing some of the important stuff that needs doing, i get all motivated. i fight to complete this important stuff as soon as possible, and keep up with all my responsibilities and friends and chores and creative projects. but when there are too many responsibilities, i do nothing. when there are too many options, i do nothing. and when there are too few responsibilities or options, i do nothing. i'd continue explaining what i mean, but i'm busy.